The most common licence mistake founders make is assuming a public repository is usable. Without an explicit licence, default copyright applies and you have no permission to copy, modify or distribute the work. Some of these are simply unmaintained metadata; the fix is an email to the maintainer asking them to add a licence, not a fork.
No licence means all rights reserved. Publishing code on GitHub grants viewing and forking within the platform, nothing more — commercial use is copyright infringement. This dataset tracks 385 No licence projects (23% of 1665 total), 13 of them actively maintained, led by LobeHub with 82k stars. Verified against repository metadata as of August 2026; this is engineering guidance, not legal advice.
Running the software inside your own company, without redistributing it, is permitted under every licence family here except undeclared/proprietary code.
Permitted. You can host, modify, close your changes and charge for access with no obligation beyond attribution.
Restricted. Either derivative work must be released under the same licence, or the licence explicitly forbids commercialising a fork.
| Project | Category | Stars | Maintenance | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LobeHub | Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) | 82k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Mattermost | Communication | 39k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Chatwoot | Communication | 36k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Budibase | Software Development | 28k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| sftpgo Community Edition | File Transfer | 12k | Actively maintained | AGPL-3.0, ⊘ Proprietary |
| Planka | Task Management & To-do Lists | 12k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Umbrel | Self-hosting Solutions | 12k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| october | Content Management Systems (CMS) | 11k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| CraftCMS | Content Management Systems (CMS) | 3.6k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Bookwyrm | Document Management | 2.8k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Sharetribe | E-commerce | 2.4k | Slowing down | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Bugsink | Ticketing | 2.0k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Keygen | Miscellaneous | 1.6k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Kirby | Content Management Systems (CMS) | 1.5k | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| eigenfocus | Software Development | 943 | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| UI Bakery | Software Development | 298 | Slowing down | ⊘ Proprietary |
| OXID eShop | E-commerce | 237 | Actively maintained | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Assets | Money, Budgeting & Management | 182 | Slowing down | ⊘ Proprietary |
| 11ty | Altro | 0 | Not verified | Undeclared |
| 21st.dev | Design | 0 | Not verified | Undeclared |
| 3CX | Communication | 0 | Not verified | ⊘ Proprietary |
| 92five | Software Development | 0 | Not verified | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Abilian Hop3 | Altro | 0 | Not verified | Undeclared |
| Abilian Nua | Altro | 0 | Not verified | Undeclared |
| AceBase | Backend as a service | 0 | Not verified | Undeclared |
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)
Modern design AI chat framework supporting multiple AI providers, one click install MCP Marketplace and Artifacts / Thinking.
Communication
Platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle, can be integrated with Gitlab (alternative to Slack).
Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk, Live chat
Customer communication platform (alternative to Intercom and Zendesk).
Alternative to Retool, Internal tools
Build and automate internal tools, admin panels, dashboards, CRUD apps, and more, in minutes (alternative to Outsystems, Retool, Mendix, Appian).
File Transfer
Flexible, fully featured and highly configurable SFTP server with optional FTP/S and WebDAV support.
Alternative to Kanban board
Realtime kanban board for workgroups (alternative to Trello).
Self-hosting Solutions
A beautiful personal server OS for self-hosting. Install on a Raspberry Pi 4 or Ubuntu/Debian.
Content Management Systems (CMS)
CMS platform based on the Laravel PHP Framework.
Content Management Systems (CMS)
Content-first CMS that aims to make life enjoyable for developers and content managers alike.
Document Management
Social network for tracking your reading, talking about books, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next.
E-commerce
Open-source platform to create your own peer-to-peer marketplace, also available with SaaS model.
Ticketing
Real-time error tracking for your applications with all the details in one place. Easy setup with clear instructions included.
Miscellaneous
Software licensing and distribution API.
Content Management Systems (CMS)
File-based CMS. Easy to setup. Easy to use. Flexible as hell.
Software Development
Project Management, Planning and Time Tracking app. From solo projects to multi-member teams, Eigenfocus adapts to your workflow.
Software Development
Build internal tools, customer portals, and CRUD apps quickly. Configure scheduled jobs and webhooks. Create structure and manage data through a GUI.
E-commerce
OXID eShop is a flexible open source e-commerce software with a wide range of functionalities.
Money, Budgeting & Management
Personal net worth and investment tracker.
Alternative to Static website generator
Alternative to Landingfolio
The NPM for Design Engineers
Communication
Full-featured PABX system, with call queues, built-in web conferencing, live chat and social media messaging all on one system.
Software Development
Self-hosted project management application.
Alternative to Platform as a Service / PaaS
Alternative to Platform as a Service / PaaS
Alternative to Firebase
Backend server with REST APIs to manage core backend needs
Software Development
Project management.
Alternative to Vector database
Alternative to Zapier
Open source alternative to Zapier. Automate your work with 200+ apps.
Alternative to Notion
There can be more than Notion and Miro. AFFiNE(pronounced [ə‘fain]) is a next-gen knowledge base that brings planning, sorting and creating all together. Privacy first, open-source, customizable and r
Alternative to Fivetran
Data integration platform
Alternative to QuickBooks
Free and open source online accounting software for small businesses and freelancers.
Alternative to Document Management / ECM
Alternative to Firebase
Backend server with REST and GraphQL APIs to manage core backend needs
Alternative to apigee
Cloud Native API Gateway under the Apache Software Foundation
Alternative to Tableau
Enterprise-ready business intelligence web application.
Alternative to Smart spreadsheet
Alternative to Algolia
Search UI components for React and Vue
Alternative to Notion
Bring projects, wikis, and teams together with AI. AppFlowy is the AI collaborative workspace where you achieve more without losing control of your data. The leading open source Notion alternative.
Alternative to Firebase
Appwrite® - complete cloud infrastructure for your web, mobile and AI apps. Including Auth, Databases, Storage, Functions, Messaging, Hosting, Realtime and more
Alternative to TigerGraph, Amazon Neptune
Graph database and document store
Alternative to Email
Alternative to Static website generator
Alternative to Canny
Alternative to Roam Research
Knowledge graph for research and notetaking
Alternative to Auth0, Okta
The overall-best open-source identity provider, focused on flexibility and versatility.
Alternative to User authentication
Alternative to Other lists of free / software
Alternative to Other lists of free / software
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No licence means all rights reserved. Publishing code on GitHub grants viewing and forking within the platform, nothing more — commercial use is copyright infringement. The most common licence mistake founders make is assuming a public repository is usable. Without an explicit licence, default copyright applies and you have no permission to copy, modify or distribute the work. Some of these are simply unmaintained metadata; the fix is an email to the maintainer asking them to add a licence, not a fork.
385 of 1665 tracked projects carry a No licence licence — about 23%. 13 of them show real momentum (commits in most of the last twelve months plus a recent release), so the practical shortlist is smaller than the raw count suggests.
Licence breach is copyright infringement, and the usual consequence is not a lawsuit — it is a failed diligence review. Acquirers and Series A investors run automated licence scans over your dependency tree; an unresolved copyleft or source-available dependency in a closed product either delays the deal or gets priced into it. The cheap fix is choosing correctly at week one.
No. A public repository with no licence file grants you nothing beyond what the hosting platform's terms allow. Default copyright applies: all rights reserved.
Licence data comes from repository metadata and can lag a relicensing event. Confirm the LICENSE file in the repository before shipping. This page is engineering guidance, not legal advice.
IdeaProof checks whether your idea is already built, how saturated the category is, and where the remaining wedge sits — in about two minutes.
Validate your idea freeSearch this database by category and by the commercial product you would replace. It covers 1665 projects across 130 categories, each mapped to the paid tool it substitutes. If your category shows a "Crowded" verdict, a maintained free version almost certainly exists and your positioning has to account for it.
No. It means free is your price anchor. Plenty of large companies were built next to a good open-source project — the ones that failed were the ones selling the same job at a price the free tool made indefensible. Find the part of the job the project deliberately does not do, and sell that.
Each category gets a 0–100 score built from three inputs: how many implementations exist, what share of them are still actively maintained, and how far ahead the leading project is compared with the category median. 62+ is Crowded, 38–61 Contested, under 38 Open. 11 categories are Crowded and 88 are Open.